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Texas Sen. Ted Cruz stumped in Iowa over the weekend, and his father Rafael Cruz was promoting his son’s possibly presidential candidacy to pastors andlocal Republican leaders during his trip. In fact, he said in an interview with Chrsitian Broadcasting Networks’ David Brody that he told his son: “You know Ted, you have been gifted above any man that I know and God has destined you for greatness.’ And I started making declarations about the Word of God to him every day.”

He goes on to suggest that his son is destined to save freedom in America, and even Brody called Cruz’s political career “a thing of God.”

The Religious Roundtable was founded by Ed McAteer and included leaders like Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, Phyllis Schlafly and Paul Weyrich. The group also helped launch Ronald Reagan’s bid for president in 1980 and hosted the conference where he quipped, “I know you can’t endorse me, but I endorse you.”

Brody: Talk me about your son and his rise. This must be a thing of God. It's meteoric.

Cruz: Yes, but you know something, it is not something that started a couple of years ago. Let me just go back to when he was maybe four. When he was four I used to read Bible stories to him all the time. And I would declare and proclaim the word of God over him. And I would just say, ‘You know Ted, you have been gifted above any man that I know and God has destined you for greatness’. And I started making declarations about the Word of God to him every day. When he was eight years old I was very active in an organization called the Religious Roundtable.

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This was a coalition of Christians and Jews who was very instrumental in helping Reagan get elected. I was on the state board of the Religious Roundtable, so when my son Ted was eight years old, all we talked about around the dinner table was politics because I was so involved with the Reagan campaign. So during that time is when I asked him so many times, ‘You know Ted, when I lost my freedom in Cuba I had a place to come to. If we lose our freedoms here where are we going to go? There is no place to go.’

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Ted enters high school, the Free Enterprise Institute organizes a group of five kids, called them the Constitutional Corroborators, now Ted is reading the The Federalist Papers, The Anti-Federalist Papers, and each of the five kids memorized the entire US Constitution.

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So before my son left high school he was passionate about the constitution. He was passionate about freedom and free markets and limited governments. Before he left high school he knew without a shadow of a doubt what his purpose in life was and it was to defend and protect freedom and the Constitution, to fight for free markets and limited government, and it became a passion in his life. So this is not a trajectory of three years, this is a trajectory of 30 years.

Following their 2012 election debacle, the Republican National Committee and the College Republicans issued reports which urged the party to go through an image makeover without adjusting its political stances. Essentially, they argued, the party should only appear to be changing and becoming more open-minded, empathetic and welcoming.

Speaking with David Brody of the Christian Broadcasting Network posted today, RNC Chairman Reince Priebus confirmed that the party will try to reach out to groups like gays and lesbians by simply appearing to be more respectful without actually changing its views on issues such as marriage equality.

After Brody said conservative evangelical voters are nervous that the GOP thinks “we have to be more tolerant,” Priebus said there is nothing to worry about. “I don’t know if I’ve used the word ‘tolerance,’ I don’t really care for that word myself. I don’t have a problem with it, I just think it has another meaning politically that can go the other direction,” the party chairman said.

“It’s not what you say, I think, it’s sometimes – like our moms used to tell us – it’s how you say it. And I think that’s really the issue. And quite frankly, I think some of that has been overblown.”

Priebus assured Brody that the GOP will continue to represent “things that are very square with our beliefs as Christians” and recognize that “there’s only one sovereign God.”

Brody: I want to talk to you about this way forward for the GOP. When you use that word ‘intolerant,’ ‘you know we have to be more tolerant’ in what the RNC put out. Evangelicals start to grab the Excedrin bottles when they hear ‘tolerance’ because they think ‘oh no the GOP is changing and the whole gay marriage situation.’ Why don’t you address this and maybe put evangelicals at ease or can you put them at ease at all here?

Priebus: Well, one hundred percent. I don’t know if I’ve used the word ‘tolerance,’ I don’t really care for that word myself. I don’t have a problem with it, I just think it has another meaning politically that can go the other direction. I happen to believe that our principles are sound. I do believe, and I still will tell you that our party believes that marriage is between one man and one woman. Our party believes that life begins at conception. I think those are foundational issues that aren’t going anywhere but what I have said, which I don’t think should be controversial at all and I would think that Christians and pastors and everyone in between should agree that our principles have to be draped in the concepts of grace, love and respect and that’s not code language, that’s the New Testament, so I don’t think there should be any problem with that thinking within our party. That’s all I’ve said. It’s not what you say, I think, it’s sometimes like our moms used to tell us, it’s how you say it; and I think that’s really the issue and quite frankly I think some of that has been overblown. I’m happy to address it but clearly myself and our party haven’t changed on those principles.

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Priebus: Looking at the evidence, what you will see is a party that embraces life, a party that embraces marriage and a chairman that understands that there’s only one sovereign God and that we ultimately aren’t dependent on what happens in politics, that that ultimately matters in our lives is that we’re salt and light in the world and that we’re honoring God in the things that we do every day. I get that. I think our party gets that and there’s never been a movement away from that. So ‘tolerance,’ maybe some people use that word, what I would tell you, when I think about it, I think about grace, I think about love, I think about respect, and I think those are things that are very square with our beliefs as Christians.

In an interview posted yesterday at the Daily Caller, Tea Party activist Ginni Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, sat down with Eagle Forum founder Phyllis Schlafly to discuss the issues of the day.

Discussing bipartisan immigration policy, Schlafly repeated herassertion that modernizing the country’s immigration system would be “suicide for the Republican Party” because new immigrants want “taxpayer goodies” from Democrats.

This led Thomas to ask Schlafly, “How does this immigration bill advance the Left’s ultimate agenda?” Schlafly responded that progressives are using immigration reform to achieve “global government” because “they don’t like the Constitution.”

Later in the interview, Thomas asked Schlafly about the belief of “some” that “cultural Marxists have already won in our country.” Schlafly agreed, saying that the “tremendous decline in marriage” is ruining America. “I grew up during the great Depression,” Schlafly added, “and we didn’t need government to do anything.”

Mat Staver of Liberty Counsel continued to levelattacks against the Supreme Court’s DOMA decision. On Janet Parshall’s radio show last week, Staver compared Justice Anthony Kennedy, who wrote the majority opinion in Windsor, to former Chief Justice Robert B. Taney, infamous for writing the Dred Scott ruling.

The Liberty University Law School dean told Parshall that the court decided wrongly in part because “our history has actually criminalized homosexual behavior” and alleged that Kennedy decided to “label everyone who believes and affirms in the natural created order of marriage between a man and a woman as a bigot and a hater.”

“How dare this court. How dare Justice Kennedy. How dare he actually give those kinds of labels to people,” Staver said. “I think the court crossed the line to illegitimacy by doing so and I think it put itself in the same category as Chief Justice Taney in the 1857 Dred Scott decision in which they said blacks were inferior human beings not entitled to citizenship, as they did in the 1927 Buck v. Bell case that said ‘sorry Carrie Buck, Virginia has a right to forcibly sterilize you.’”

John Stemberger appeared on Peter LaBarbera’s show Americans For Truth About Homosexuality Radio Hour yesterday to promote his new alternative to the Boy Scouts. Stemberger left the Boy Scouts of America after it voted to lift its ban on openly gay youth, and in a press conference announced that “young men who have same-sex attractions will be permitted into the organization, though they will not be allowed to push a gay agenda or flaunt their sexual orientation. I think that there's a real difference between someone who has a same-sex attraction and someone who identifies with the gay political movement.”

Seeing that the breakaway group left solely over the issue of homosexuality, Stemberger’s claim that only “someone who identifies with the gay political movement” will be barred from his group may seem perplexing.

But that is until you realize that Stemberger actuallybelieves that anyone who is openly gay and not suppressing or trying to change his sexual orientation is part of the sinister gay agenda.

As he explained to LaBarbera, “if there is a young man who we find out or confesses to a leader, in the context that these are Christian men, that they have a same-sex attraction, we will deal with that as a ministry issue. We will point them to the scripture, point them to the standard of our membership oath and to the scripture and to help them through that.”

“However, we will not tolerate under any circumstances any kind of flaunting, any kind of outward loud and proud nonsense, all of that that encompasses gay activism, the promotion of the gay agenda, will absolutely not be tolerated in the program,” Stemberger said. “That’s a huge difference because the BSA will have that, that’s exactly what they are inviting when they allow open and avowed [gay] youth.”

Speaking alongside senators Ted Cruz and Jeff Sessions and Rep. Steve King at this week’s anti-immigrant "DC March for Jobs" was a cast of lesser-known Tea Party characters, including Ken Crow, who gave a memorable speech on Bill Pullman, the Alamo, and stallion breeding, and Internet radio personality Kevin Jackson, who told the crowd that immigration reform would amount to “treason” and “slavery 2.0.” and is merely “a clever way to keep black people corralled in these urban indoctrination centers they call cities.”

Jackson -- who has previously claimed that President Obama “has taken American back into the 1960’s except now whites are enslaved to blacks,” and that “women on the Left secretly wish to build a society of powerful ugly women” – alleged that undocumented immigrants are “mostly criminals” and “undocumented freeloaders.”

“It’s Jim Crow laws being touted as immigration reform, and immigration reform is just a euphemism for treason,” he said.

WTVA in Tupelo, Mississippi, reported today on a marriage equality march near the headquarters of the American Family Association. They of course asked the AFA for its view on the march, and got this response:

"The Bible calls believers to hold out God's grace to sinners. All kinds of sinners whether you are a liar or a stealer or an adulterer or a homosexual," said Patrick J. Vaughn, General Counsel for the American Family Association.

Vaughn went on to describe what he calls a very strong drive among homosexual activist to have the name marriage attached to their relationships.

"I believe that is because they think that will give them a feeling of acceptance in that what they are doing is right if they have this label [of marriage]. Unfortunately, I don't think that is going to last very long because the alienation that they sense is really an alienation because they are alienated from God. They are refusing to obey what he's commanded and they are doing something that is against the nature of the way he created them," said Vaughn.

Earlier this week, the AFA released a statement about the Mississippi marriage equality effort, claiming that gays and lesbians "already have" marriage equality in the state...because they are free marry someone of the opposite sex:

[H]homosexuals already have the same marriage rights that everyone has. Every person in America has the right to marry someone of the opposite sex. Mississippians should not be fooled by the deceitful tactics that these groups are using to induce pity for homosexuals who cannot be married in Mississippi, because they have chosen a homosexual lifestyle.

Gun Owners of America executive director Larry Pratt joined Steve Malzberg on Wednesday to talk about the verdict in the George Zimmerman trial, which he somehow managed to tie to the tragedy in Benghazi.

“They’re trying to use the race card to move against guns,” he said. “They really don’t want us walking around with a gun, able to defend ourselves.”

This mindset, Pratt says, affected Benghazi, where he claims “they withdrew armed guards protecting the diplomats in that town shortly before it was attacked” because “they just think being able to defend yourself is counter-productive.”

Today, the Center for Immigration Studies posted a full video of Crow’s speech, and it turns out that the Secretariat/donkey analogy was just the beginning of his racist talking points. After fretting about the impact of immigrants on American “bloodlines,” Crow points to Arlington National Cemetery and says, “You’ve got the breeding, you’ve got the DNA, you’ve got the patriotism and you’ve got the sacrifice. And I’ll be damned if I’m going to give my country up to a bunch of people who do not deserve to be here.”

He then goes on to compare immigrants to invading space aliens, quoting from Bill Pullman’s famous speech in the movie Independence Day, and to equate anti-immigrant Tea Party activists to Texan forces at the Alamo.

Alan Keyes believes the fringe group “Overpasses for Obama’s Impeachment” represents a popular wave that will elect congressmen committed to impeaching and removing both President Obama and Vice President Biden. Please do check out the myriad/insane reasons “Overpasses” seeks Obama’s impeachment (hint: alleged gay lovers and FEMA camps are on the list).

Keyes predicts that “Overpasses” will bring about a “sufficiently strong political movement” that will realize a two-thirds majority in both houses of Congress. He calls them “the bucket brigade,” as their first job will be to elect a Speaker of House who “they believe best suited to take over the Office of President of the United States,” then to impeach and remove Biden, and finally to impeach and remove Obama.

“The key to success is to demand that candidates take a solemn oath to impeach and remove those who are conniving to overthrow our Constitution, trample our unalienable rights, and rape us of our national birthright, which is God-acknowledging liberty,” Keyes writes. “Find and swear-in ‘the bucket brigade.’ And once they're elected, sit on them to make sure they get the job done quickly.”

WND.com is reporting on the activities of people who have been gathering on highway and other overpasses in different parts of the country with signs advocating the impeachment of Barack Obama. Practically every day brings fresh evidence that Obama and his appointed henchmen have abandoned their oath to uphold the Constitution.

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The GOP leaders are likely to get away with this dereliction of their duty to the Constitution because most Americans have never taken the time to think through the electoral significance of the constitutional process for impeachment and removal. They don't realize that every two years, Americans who vote in the general election have the chance to cast a vote of no-confidence in the National Administration, including all the civil officers in each branch of government. A sufficiently strong political movement, clearly focused on achieving a Congressional majority to impeach and remove the offenders, could throw them out, like a janitor pouring out a bucket of dirty suds. And starting at the top, they could replace them with people ready to clean up the government's act.

Let's say that when the smoke clears after the 2014 election, people who have pledged to vote for impeachment and removal of the offenders have been elected, in sufficient numbers, in both the U.S. House and the U.S. Senate. Let's call them "the bucket brigade" for short. As the Congress organizes itself for action, the first step of "the bucket brigade" would be to elect, as Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, the person they believe best suited to take over the Office of President of the United States. This could be any qualified person in the U.S., since the Speaker does not have to be a member of the House.

The bucket brigade's second step would be to impeach and remove the Vice-President of the United States, in order to assure that the President of the Senate cannot delay the proceedings. They would then impeach and remove the President of the United States. According to existing law, the Speaker of the House then assumes the Presidency. The bucket brigade might then proceed to remove all the civil officers implicated in the President's malfeasance. However, assuming that the new President asks for and receives the resignations of all current Presidential appointees, this step would be unnecessary in most cases. In this way, the vote of no confidence achieved at the polls in the Congressional elections would translate into a complete change in the national administration, including recalcitrant members of the Judiciary, if the need be.

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The key to that movement has nothing to do with sham party labels. The sham party system is a carefully-constructed diversion. The key to success is to demand that candidates take a solemn oath to impeach and remove those who are conniving to overthrow our Constitution, trample our unalienable rights, and rape us of our national birthright, which is God-acknowledging liberty. Find and swear-in "the bucket brigade." And once they're elected, sit on them to make sure they get the job done quickly.

First the gays ruined the Food Network, now they have come for the Disney Channel. Janet Porter of Faith2Action warned in a radio commentary today that “there isn’t much on the Disney Channel safe for children to view” after reading a story about how the show Good Luck Charlie will “be introducing a family with two lesbian mothers.” She urged listeners to contact Disney’s Vice President over the network’s “bad plans” and told parents to “steer your kids elsewhere.”

Now, you can’t trust the Disney Channel. One of their more popular programs, “Good Luck Charlie” will in a few months be introducing a family with two lesbian mothers. Caving into pressure to include homosexual characters in their programs, they plan to do this in the last episode of what is scheduled to be the final season of the show. Disney Channel Vice President Gary Marsh needs to hear from us. His email address is gary.marsh @ disney.com. Politely let Mr. Marsh know your objections to the bad plans for the “Good Luck Charlie” program at gary.marsh @ disney.com. In fact, there isn’t much on the Disney Channel safe for children to view. More reason to steer your kids elsewhere!

Mission America’s Linda Harvey yesterday accused the National Education Association of pushing “non-factual, pro-homosexual propaganda” that will “harm” children across the country.

“The nation’s teachers’ union, which has many, many homosexual delegates, will disseminate this depravity throughout our nation,” Harvey warned. “This is truly heartbreaking and outrageous and will only stop when the moms and dads of America go to their state legislatures and stop it.”

Indeed, Harvey believes that such “indoctrination” will even damage the ability of kids to read. She said that the NEA’s reading campaign, which features First Lady Michelle Obama, is undermined by “backward, harmful political correctness.”

NEA’s going to ask Michelle Obama to head up a Read America program. That’s a good idea, but perhaps one reason children are falling behind in reading is because of so much concentration on indoctrinating them in backward, harmful political correctness.

Last year, Religious Right activists believed — without any evidence — that their boycott campaign against Starbucks over the company’s endorsement of marriage equality cost Starbucks billions. Ken Hutcherson, the Washington-based anti-gay activist and the favorite pastor of conservative leaders like Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck, seems to be under the impression that he dealt similar damage to Microsoft as part of his protest of the company’s pro-gay rights positions.

While speaking to a Tea Party Unity conference call, Hutcherson said that he led a mass-selloff of Microsoft stock on March 15 as a demonstration against the company’s stand for equality that cost the company tens of millions, if not billions, of dollars.

“I had Christians buying stock in Microsoft and they gave me one share and they kept the rest of their shares and gave me their proxy to go to the meetings here in Seattle and say that as stockholders we do not like the way you’re going down in our country, in our state, trying to change the laws and to push the homosexuality as a minority group,” Hutchreson explained. “I said if you guys don’t back off I’m gonna sell my stock and I’m gonna have everyone that bought sell stock; they laughed, they pooh-poohed me and they thought I was nuts so I said, alright just wait and see.”

He said that “there was a selloff of stock on March 15, $30 million in one day Microsoft lost and they have not recovered yet, someone told me the difference was $30 billion and I never can confirm that because they won’t allow that to come out.”

WASHINGTON – People For the American Way today applauded the Senate confirmation of Tom Perez as Secretary of Labor. Marge Baker, Executive Vice President of People For the American Way, released the following statement:

“Anyone who cares about the fair treatment of workers or civil rights should be thrilled by the confirmation of Tom Perez. During his time in the Justice Department, Perez’s commitment to protecting the rights of Americans – whether they are women, people of color, LGBT people, or people with disabilities – has been extraordinary. He has spent his career fighting for the rights of all Americans and now he will be able to take that passion and commitment to the Department of Labor.

“Even though today’s vote is an important step forward, we must continue to confront the partisan gridlock in the Senate that is hurting the American people. We must ensure that the President’s judicial nominees, like his executive nominees, also receive up and down votes. The American people understand that when senators decide they’d rather play politics than do their jobs, it harms not only Congress but all of our country.”

Liberty Counsel head Mat Staver, who last year warned that Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) will lead to the “death of some individuals,” in a Freedom’s Call radio alert said that the bill is a “farce” that will “harm women and children.” How? Because employers “will be forced to hire cross-dressers,” whom Staver believes will go on to molest and assault kids.

Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ), who introduced several anti-choice bills in Congress including the recent 20-week ban, appeared on In The Market With Janet Parshall yesterday to warn about the deleterious societal consequences of not banning abortion. The congressman said if Americans “turn a blind eye” to the “horror” of legal abortion, “I wonder then what hope remains.”

“If we still let ourselves become insensitive at that point then I really am afraid for us as a human society,” he continued.

Franks then onceagain likened abortion rights to slavery and racism: “We wonder how our forbearers dehumanized African Americans, we wonder and say, ‘couldn’t they see the humanity in them?’ But they didn’t. And today we think they were so blind yet we are blind staggering blind in our own generation.”

A state elections board has prevented Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach from forcing the status of 12,000 voters into limbo, but he doesn’t get what the big deal is.

Kobach hit a speed bump this week in his effort to implement a new voter ID measure that requires voters to produce proof of citizenship when they register to vote. As Think Progress reported yesterday, a computer system delay has caused the voting status of 12,000 Kansans, most of whom registered while doing business at the DMV under the “motor voter” law, to go into limbo.

To “fix” this problem, Kobach suggested that the 12,000 voters effected by the computer glitch be forced to cast provisional ballots in the next election. If they wanted those ballots to count, they would have to later go to local election officials armed with proof of citizenship, such as a birth certificate.

The state elections board rejected Kobach’s solution. As Republican state senator Vick Schmidt said, “I don’t believe a large percentage of the population knows what casting a provisional ballot means. They believe it is going to count. Sadly for these 12,000-plus individuals, it will not count unless they take further action, and I think that is disingenuous at best.”

But Kobach told the Wichita Eagle that disenfranchising those 12,000 people wouldn’t be a “major problem” because they represent a “tiny percentage” of Kansas’ voters and probably don’t really want to vote anyway:

Kobach said his proposal would have given voters, particularly those who could participate in upcoming special elections this fall, an extra week to prove their citizenship. But he said those who remain in suspense probably only registered after being asked by clerks at the Department of Motor Vehicles and aren’t likely to be very active voters.

“I don’t think it’s a major problem,” he said. “This is a pretty tiny percentage of 1.8 million voters. It’s a small number of people. We’ll see as the coming elections unfold how many actually come out to vote.”

To put this in perspective, Kobach’s justification for pushing the voter ID law in the first place was what he alleged were 221 incidents of illegal voting in Kansas over the period of 13 years, only seven of which resulted in convictions.

So, Kobach thinks seven confirmed cases of voter fraud over 13 years requires upending the state’s entire voting system. But that overhaul resulting in 12,000 voters in one election forced to cast ballots that might not count affects “a small number of people” and is not a “major problem.”

Foster goes on to compare himself to Jesus Christ. But since Foster is freeing people from gay slavery…naturally we here at Right Wing Watch, according to Foster, are like the slave catchers trying to bring the tens of ex-gays back to the gay plantation.

“Brian Tashman, a sycophant for the proslavery group RightWingWatch is making sure the massahs and slave catchers are being kept abreast of my writings,” Foster writes, “Tashman is acting like those who, using the power of the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, released posters and fliers to aid the slave catchers in their apprehension of runaway slaves.”

I’ve been writing to show some of the parallels between America’s proslavery antagonists and the new gay rights movement.

The good thing is that now we know the face of the real enemy of freedom. Their insatiable thirst to uphold their shallow lie pushes them to strike out myself and other EXGLBT Americans and our message.

Brian Tashman, a sycophant for the proslavery group RightWingWatch is making sure the massahs and slave catchers are being kept abreast of my writings. Tashman is acting like those who, using the power of the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, released posters and fliers to aid the slave catchers in their apprehension of runaway slaves. In fact, the Fugitive Slave Law stated that every citizen was responsible for helping to recover and return fugitive slaves; so any white person from the North or South could be, and was expected to be, a fugitive slave catcher. So no doubt Brian Tashman feels a certain sense of importance by “exposing” my work of helping homosexuals change and celebrating those who have. RWW, the SPLC and HRC most likely already feel the threat and thus feel compelled to alert others that we are helping homosexuals escape their psychological plantations by empowering them with spiritual truth.

The right-wingfreakout over ENDA continues to build after the Senate HELP committee approved the anti-discrimination legislation with bipartisan support. Peter Sprigg of the Family Research Council appeared on The Janet Mefferd Show yesterday to stoke fears about the bill, arguing that it is an effort to legislate morality, but it’s not our morality, it’s not Christian morality, it’s the immorality of those who accept homosexual conduct.” Sprigg, who infamously called for gays and lesbians to be exported from the US, said ENDA represents a “direct assault on moral values.”

Erwin Lutzer, pastor of the Chicago-based Moody Church, appeared last month on The John Ankerberg Show to discuss the “Five Disturbing Changes Facing Our Nation” – including growing support for LGBT equality. While discussing efforts in Illinois to pass same-sex marriage legislation, Lutzer warned that the gay rights movement will lead to a “tsunami” of anti-Christian persecution and warned against tolerating marriage equality laws.

According to Lutzer, same-sex marriage cannot “coexist” with opposite-sex marriage because “same-sex marriage legalized breaks down the family in some very, very important ways.”

Marriage equality, Lutzer predicts, will lead to societal collapse just like drilling a hole will sink a boat: “I can imagine someone riding in a boat saying, ‘I have a constitution right to drill a hole through my side of the boat.’ The problem is we are all on the same boat.”